Friday, May 22, 2009

Abraham's Eye

I got a desk calendar for the new year called "Forgotten English" by Jeffrey Kacirk. It has old phrases and words from English for each day. Some are pretty funny. So I though I would share a few along the way for your pleasure.

Abraham's eye: A magical charm, the application which was supposed to deprive a thief a who refused to confess his crime of eyesight; from a 16th-century manuscript on magic. --Edward Lloyd's Encyclopaedic Dictionary, 1896

The entry also comes with a little tidbit on some historical significance of the day and/or the word.

Today is 150th birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes series. It goes on to say that even though the movies have Sherlock saying "Elementary, my dear Watson" he never actually said that in the books, though he did use "Exactly, my dear Watson" three times.